Individual Boundaries menu

Use the individual Boundaries menu to manage and edit the selected boundary.

To display the menu, in the Explorer, right-click an individual boundary.

Curve Editor — Click to display the Curve Editor tab, which enables you to create and edit boundaries. The assumption is that you extract curves from the model, by extracting curves at surface boundaries, before modifying the curve to create the exact boundary you need.

Copy — Select to copy the selected items to the clipboard.

Paste — Select to paste the items on the clipboard into the boundary or pattern.

• Copy and paste works between model, boundary, and pattern entities.
• You can paste only closed segments into boundaries.
• You can paste only wireframe geometry from models into boundaries or patterns.
• You can copy and paste data within PowerMill or from one PowerMill session to another.

Activate — When selected, activates this boundary and de-activates any currently active boundary. When deselected, de-activates this boundary.

Activate Workplane — Select to activate the workplane used to create this boundary.

Settings — Select to display the parameters used to create this boundary.

The editable fields depend on whether the boundary is used in a toolpath. If it is then the Name is the only editable field.

For more information, see Boundary types.

Calculate — Select to calculate a Batch boundary. A Batch boundary is preceded by . You can create a batch boundary by clicking Accept rather than Apply on any Boundary dialog

Queue — Select to check that all the parameters used to calculate the boundary are acceptable, add the boundary to the calculation queue and closes the dialog. The boundary is calculated in the background when PowerMill would otherwise be idle.

Recreate Block — Select to recreate the block used to create this boundary.

Select Surfaces — Click to select the surfaces used to create this boundary. This displays a result only if you had to select specific surfaces to create the boundary.

Draw — When selected, displays the boundary. Deselect to "hide" it. This option toggles between and .

Add to Folder — Select to add the entity to the active folder. If the Folder option is unavailable then activate the folder.

Note: You can add an entity only to a folder within that entity type. For example, you cannot add a toolpath entity to a NC program folder.

Instrument — All curves have a direction. If you instrument a curve, it places an arrow on each segment (pointing towards the end of the segment) and an X at the end of each segment.

Rename — Select to rename the entity.

Select All — Click to select all segments of the boundary (they turn yellow).

Invert Selection — Select to deselect the part of the boundary that is currently selected and select the part of the boundary that is currently unselected.

Deselect — Click to deselect any selected boundary segments (they turn white).

Save — Select to save the modified boundary. The Save Boundary dialog is displayed. This is a standard windows save dialog.

Edit — Select to display the editing options.

Insert — Select to insert entities into the boundary.

Undo Last Edit — Select to revert the boundary to what it was before the edit.

Redo Last Undone Edit — Select to reinstate the edit you have just undone.

Clear History Buffers — Select to empty the undo buffer, so you can no longer undo an edit.

Unlock Boundary — Select to unlock the boundary for editing and overrides all locks on the boundary. When unlocked, you can edit the boundary.

Selecting Unlock Boundary displays a Query dialog which identifies all the entities that used this boundary.

• Yes — The boundary is unlocked and calculated entities using this boundary are turned to batched entities. In this case, toolpath 1 is changed from a calculated toolpath to a batch toolpath . When you have edited the boundary, you must recalculate the batched entities.
• No — The boundary remains locked.

If no entities use the boundary, no dialog is displayed.

Remove from Folder — Select to remove the boundary from the current folder.

Delete Boundary — Select to delete the boundary.